New Cluster Compute Instances provide scalable, elastic,
cost-efficient AWS cloud resources for advanced HPC workloads
SEATTLE, Jul 13, 2010 (BUSINESS WIRE) --
Amazon Web Services LLC, an Amazon.com company (NASDAQ:AMZN), today
announced Cluster Compute Instances for Amazon EC2, a new instance type
specifically designed for high-performance computing (HPC) applications
and other demanding network-bound applications. Customers with complex
computational workloads such as tightly coupled parallel processes, or
with applications sensitive to network performance, can now achieve the
same high compute and networking performance provided by custom-built
infrastructure while benefiting from the elasticity, flexibility and
cost advantages of Amazon EC2. To get started using Cluster Compute
Instances for Amazon EC2, visit http://aws.amazon.com.
Prior to Cluster Compute Instances for Amazon EC2, organizations with
advanced HPC needs have been required to fund expensive, in-house
compute clusters by purchasing dedicated, purpose-built hardware. As a
result, the demand for high-performance cluster computing often exceeds
the capacity of many organizations, and many projects are cut altogether
or wait in long queues to access shared resources. With Cluster Compute
Instances, businesses and researchers now have access to the
high-performance computing capabilities they need - with pay-as-you-go
pricing, the ability to scale on-demand, and no upfront investments.
Cluster Compute Instances provide similar functionality to other Amazon
EC2 instances but have been specifically engineered to provide
high-performance compute and networking. Cluster Compute Instances
provide more CPU than any other Amazon EC2 instance. Customers can also
group Cluster Compute Instances into clusters - allowing applications to
get the low-latency network performance required for tightly coupled,
node-to-node communication (typical of many HPC applications). Cluster
Compute Instances also provide significantly increased network
throughput making them well suited for customer applications that need
to perform network-intensive operations. Depending on usage patterns,
applications can see up to 10 times the network throughput of the
largest current Amazon EC2 instance types.
"Businesses and researchers have long been utilizing Amazon EC2 to run
highly parallel workloads ranging from genomics sequence analysis and
automotive design to financial modeling. At the same time, these
customers have told us that many of their largest, most complex
workloads required additional network performance," said Peter De
Santis, General Manager of Amazon EC2. "Cluster Compute Instances
provide network latency and bandwidth that previously could only be
obtained with expensive, capital intensive, custom-built compute
clusters. For perspective, in one of our pre-production tests, an 880
server sub-cluster achieved 41.82 TFlops on a LINPACK test run - we're
very excited that Amazon EC2 customers now have access to this type of
HPC performance with the low per-hour pricing, elasticity, and
functionality they have come to expect from Amazon EC2."
The National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center (NERSC) at the
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory is the primary high-performance
computing facility supporting scientific research sponsored by the U.S.
Department of Energy. "Many of our scientific research areas require
high-throughput, low-latency, interconnected systems where applications
can quickly communicate with each other, so we were happy to collaborate
with Amazon Web Services to test drive our HPC applications on Cluster
Compute Instances for Amazon EC2," said Keith Jackson, a computer
scientist at the Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. "In our series of
comprehensive benchmark tests, we found our HPC applications ran 8.5
times faster on Cluster Compute Instances for Amazon EC2 than the
previous EC2 instance types."
MathWorks is a leading developer and supplier of software for technical
computing and model-based design. The company now enables its
customers, using MATLAB and Parallel Computing Toolbox on their
desktops, to scale data-intensive computation problems up to access
greater compute power with Cluster Compute Instances for Amazon EC2,
which are running MATLAB Distributed Computing Server. "Cluster Compute
Instances give MATLAB users the opportunity to test and run their high
performance computing problems for data-intensive applications in the
cloud at a price and performance level that allows us to continually
innovate and meet customer needs," said Silvina Grad-Freilich, Senior
Manager Parallel-Computing at MathWorks. "We're thrilled to allow our
customers to leverage Amazon Web Services as an easily accessible way to
meet their needs for increased compute power."
Adaptive Computing provides automation intelligence software, powered by
its Moab technology, for HPC, data center and cloud environments. Moab
is the management layer for more than 50 percent of the resources at the
top computing systems in the world. "The availability of Cluster Compute
Instances on Amazon EC2 gives organizations access to on-demand and
highly available HPC resources," said Michael Jackson, COO and President
of Adaptive Computing. "For years we've helped customers build and
manage the world's most complex large-scale computing clusters, and now
with Cluster Compute Instances, customers can leverage Adaptive
Computing's familiar automation software tools to manage HPC resources
on Amazon's leading cloud infrastructure."
David Patterson is a world-renowned expert, author and academic who has
been recognized with more than 30 awards for research, teaching and
service. He is the co-inventor of RAID, RISC and several other computer
innovations and has taught computer architecture at University of
California, Berkeley, since joining the faculty in 1977. "The
high-performance networking of Cluster Compute Instances for Amazon EC2
fills an important need among scientific computing professionals, making
the on-demand and scalable cloud environment more viable for technical
computing," said Patterson.
Cluster Compute Instances complement other AWS offerings designed to
make large-scale computing easier and more cost effective. For example,
Public Data Sets on AWS provide a repository of useful public data sets
that can be easily accessed from Amazon EC2, allowing fast,
cost-effective data analysis by researchers and businesses. These large
data sets are hosted on AWS at no charge to the community. Additionally,
the Amazon Elastic MapReduce service enables low-friction, cost
effective implementation of the Hadoop framework on Amazon EC2. Hadoop
is a popular tool for analyzing very large data sets in a highly
parallel environment, and Amazon EC2 provides the scale-out environment
to run Hadoop clusters of all sizes.
For more information on Amazon EC2 and Cluster Compute Instances, visit http://aws.amazon.com/hpc-applications.
About Amazon.com
Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN), a Fortune 500 company based in Seattle,
opened on the World Wide Web in July 1995 and today offers Earth's
Biggest Selection. Amazon.com, Inc. seeks to be Earth's most
customer-centric company, where customers can find and discover anything
they might want to buy online, and endeavors to offer its customers the
lowest possible prices. Amazon.com and other sellers offer millions of
unique new, refurbished and used items in categories such as Books;
Movies, Music & Games; Digital Downloads; Electronics & Computers; Home
& Garden; Toys, Kids & Baby; Grocery; Apparel, Shoes & Jewelry; Health &
Beauty; Sports & Outdoors; and Tools, Auto & Industrial. Amazon Web
Services provides Amazon's developer customers with access to
in-the-cloud infrastructure services based on Amazon's own back-end
technology platform, which developers can use to enable virtually any
type of business. Kindle and Kindle DX are the revolutionary portable
readers that wirelessly download books, magazines, newspapers, blogs and
personal documents to a crisp, high-resolution electronic ink display
that looks and reads like real paper. Kindle and Kindle DX utilize the
same 3G wireless technology as advanced cell phones, so users never need
to hunt for a Wi-Fi hotspot. Kindle is the #1 bestselling product across
the millions of items sold on Amazon.
Amazon and its affiliates operate websites, including www.amazon.com,
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www.amazon.fr,
www.amazon.ca,
and www.amazon.cn.
As used herein, "Amazon.com," "we," "our" and similar terms include
Amazon.com, Inc., and its subsidiaries, unless the context indicates
otherwise.
Forward-Looking Statements
This announcement contains forward-looking statements within the meaning
of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933 and Section 21E of the
Securities Exchange Act of 1934. Actual results may differ significantly
from management's expectations. These forward-looking statements involve
risks and uncertainties that include, among others, risks related to
competition, management of growth, new products, services and
technologies, potential fluctuations in operating results, international
expansion, outcomes of legal proceedings and claims, fulfillment center
optimization, seasonality, commercial agreements, acquisitions and
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inventory, government regulation and taxation, payments and fraud. More
information about factors that potentially could affect Amazon.com's
financial results is included in Amazon.com's filings with the
Securities and Exchange Commission, including its most recent Annual
Report on Form 10-K and subsequent filings.
SOURCE: Amazon.com, Inc.
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